Amelia PETERSON - I love her stories.  andtheworld: March 27, 2009 I’m on the Amtrak going to Syracuse.  When I travel, I tend to take as many forms of transportation as possible.  So far this trip, I’ve taken a plane, subway, bus, streetcar, car, and now train.  Most of this is due to the fact that I try to save money in as many ways as possible, so I generally take the cheapest route between two places. I’m glad to be out of the small station.  After handing the ticket seller my ID, he asked what I was doing up here and told me I was Cornhusker.  He said he always wanted to go to Nebraska to hunt pheasants.  My uncle talked to him about hunting, before he too was obviously a bit annoyed by the incessant discuss of hunting.  After my uncle left, I sat down to enjoy more of The Commitment.  Somewhere between wedding expos and gay sex, the ticket operator came outside of his booth to ask me what I do in Nebraska.  After briefly explaining, somewhat that I own my own business, (Seriously, I don’t even now what I do.) he stood quietly for a couple moments before plunging into a conversation that went something like this: Pheasant obsessed ticket seller:  There aren’t many pheasants around here anymore.  I used to see them around the station.  They are being killed off by some disease.  Me:  Oh yeah? He’s silent for awhile as he stares off towards the other side of the small room.  I look down at my book not really knowing if I should try and say something about pheasants.  But really, what do I know about pheasants? Pheasant obsessed ticket seller:  I have a couple of those camtracker cameras and so does my nephew.  He won second place in a competition once for a bunch of coyotes that too down a deer.  He should have one first place.  You should have seen it.   Me:  Wow.  That’s really awesome. He stares off towards the other end of the room again and I glance back down at my book.  I started to wonder if I was supposed to indulge this man with stores about hunting.  Maybe I should have made up a hunting trip.  Luckily at this point, a customer walks in the room and I can finally start reading my book again. I really didn’t know what to say to this man.  It seemed odd that he was working at this station.  His voice was husky, obviously from smoking too many packs of cigarettes in his life.  His uniform seemed off, as if it was a struggle to get on every morning.  He must sit in his little booth and dream about hunting pheasants.  He seems more like some sort of mobster, like maybe he wanted all his life to be someone amazing, but was too afraid to try.  So he got his job at the Amtrak Station, and despite being far from his actual dream of being a professional pheasant hunter, he felt safe underneath the highway, in the little building that is barely noticeable.  I really should have talked more, but that’s just not my forte.  This morning my grandma asked if I write down stuff about my trip.  I tell her I try to blog.  Try being the key word.  Traveling is something that is really important to me and I definitely try to write down my thoughts and experiences about what I see and what I do.  But sometimes I just get tired—tired from my trip and just plain tired of writing.  There are plenty of times that I feel lie I have writers block about writing about just writing.  Like my brain can’t even physically comprehend what I am seeing or doing.  This happened a lot while I was in India.  I think partially because there were times that I really honestly could not write about some of the things I saw.  There are images seared into my brain that I can sometimes talk about, but I’m scared to write about.  Not scared in the way that I feel like I’ll get into trouble for what I’m writing, but scared in the fact that once I write it down, it will all be real.  Also, I really like my photos to show some of my experiences.  I have 8000 photos from India.  That has to show way more than what I could ever write about.   There are also things I want to write about—like getting old.  My grandma has always been old to me.  Even though we’ve both aged 22 years together, we’ve both gotten older together and my perception of her aging has kept right up with my own aging.  I really only saw her twice a year while growing up, so her chin hairs, gray, thin hair, and thick glasses are something I always remember being there, whether or not they were.  When I took my grandma out the other day and she had trouble getting in and out of the car, she kept saying how her grandmother and mother always told her not to get old.  “Dorthy, don’t get old,”  they would say.  She said she would always say, “What am I supposed to do?”  My grandma said she knows what they meant now.  Getting old is no fun.  I’m turning 22 in a couple days.  I don’t want to get old.   So I’ve been on the train for about 2 hours now and I’m starting to pine more and more to be able to live out one of my biggest dreams—to get on a raft ( I don’t really care…kayak, canoe, inflatable boat) and just get on any river or stream and just take it wherever it goes.  I want to get really, really lost and just see where I end up.  I’ve had this dream for a really long time.  Whenever I drive cross-country, I always pass so many rivers with very distinguishable names.  They have names like the Little Raccoon River and the Skunk River.  I don’t really know if those are right, but I always know when I pass them that I’ve been there before.  I also don’t really know why I want to get so lost.  I was lost once in the forest at my cabin.  It’s a really dumb story and it’s actually a bit embarrassing.  I got angry at my family (as I was angry a lot that summer, I really don’t know why), so I stomped off into the forest, not really meaning to get lost or to go that far.  I meant to curve around and make it back to the road, but I guess that didn’t happen.  I remember seeing a coyote and deciding not to go the way it was going, so I went a different way, which was probably a big mistake.  I ended up not being able to find the road, despite being able to hear it.  I went running through the marsh in only flipflops (I wasn’t planning on getting lost).  My feet were scratched, I was completely disoriented, and now more than ever, completely angry at myself.  I eventually saw a red truck through the trees, which belonged to the people who owned the land next to our plot.  I followed their driveway back to the road and started walking the half mile back to the cabin completely defeated and devastated.  But I feel like if I planned to get lost, it really wouldn’t be so bad.  And besides, I’d be like an explorer.  Yeah, I have fantasies about that as well. A man across from me on the train drank a little bottle of wine during most of the train ride.  Now he is sleeping.  I don’t think wine would be an appetizing addition to a train ride, but maybe I just don’t know these things or maybe I’m just not old enough yet to appreciate the misappropriate, but amazing times to indulge myself with alcohol.  Either way, I hope I don’t get the belly that he has or have to read The Alex Studies: Cognitive and Communicative Abilities of Grey Parrots.  Not even joking.  If I had to read that, I would definitely want to finish off a bottle of wine and fall asleep.  

Amelia PETERSON - I love her stories. 

andtheworld:

March 27, 2009

I’m on the Amtrak going to Syracuse.  When I travel, I tend to take as many forms of transportation as possible.  So far this trip, I’ve taken a plane, subway, bus, streetcar, car, and now train.  Most of this is due to the fact that I try to save money in as many ways as possible, so I generally take the cheapest route between two places.

I’m glad to be out of the small station.  After handing the ticket seller my ID, he asked what I was doing up here and told me I was Cornhusker.  He said he always wanted to go to Nebraska to hunt pheasants.  My uncle talked to him about hunting, before he too was obviously a bit annoyed by the incessant discuss of hunting.  After my uncle left, I sat down to enjoy more of The Commitment.  Somewhere between wedding expos and gay sex, the ticket operator came outside of his booth to ask me what I do in Nebraska.  After briefly explaining, somewhat that I own my own business, (Seriously, I don’t even now what I do.) he stood quietly for a couple moments before plunging into a conversation that went something like this:

Pheasant obsessed ticket seller:  There aren’t many pheasants around here anymore.  I used to see them around the station.  They are being killed off by some disease. 

Me:  Oh yeah?

He’s silent for awhile as he stares off towards the other side of the small room.  I look down at my book not really knowing if I should try and say something about pheasants.  But really, what do I know about pheasants?

Pheasant obsessed ticket seller:  I have a couple of those camtracker cameras and so does my nephew.  He won second place in a competition once for a bunch of coyotes that too down a deer.  He should have one first place.  You should have seen it.  

Me:  Wow.  That’s really awesome.

He stares off towards the other end of the room again and I glance back down at my book.  I started to wonder if I was supposed to indulge this man with stores about hunting.  Maybe I should have made up a hunting trip.  Luckily at this point, a customer walks in the room and I can finally start reading my book again.

I really didn’t know what to say to this man.  It seemed odd that he was working at this station.  His voice was husky, obviously from smoking too many packs of cigarettes in his life.  His uniform seemed off, as if it was a struggle to get on every morning.  He must sit in his little booth and dream about hunting pheasants.  He seems more like some sort of mobster, like maybe he wanted all his life to be someone amazing, but was too afraid to try.  So he got his job at the Amtrak Station, and despite being far from his actual dream of being a professional pheasant hunter, he felt safe underneath the highway, in the little building that is barely noticeable.  I really should have talked more, but that’s just not my forte. 

This morning my grandma asked if I write down stuff about my trip.  I tell her I try to blog.  Try being the key word.  Traveling is something that is really important to me and I definitely try to write down my thoughts and experiences about what I see and what I do.  But sometimes I just get tired—tired from my trip and just plain tired of writing.  There are plenty of times that I feel lie I have writers block about writing about just writing.  Like my brain can’t even physically comprehend what I am seeing or doing.  This happened a lot while I was in India.  I think partially because there were times that I really honestly could not write about some of the things I saw.  There are images seared into my brain that I can sometimes talk about, but I’m scared to write about.  Not scared in the way that I feel like I’ll get into trouble for what I’m writing, but scared in the fact that once I write it down, it will all be real.  Also, I really like my photos to show some of my experiences.  I have 8000 photos from India.  That has to show way more than what I could ever write about.  

There are also things I want to write about—like getting old.  My grandma has always been old to me.  Even though we’ve both aged 22 years together, we’ve both gotten older together and my perception of her aging has kept right up with my own aging.  I really only saw her twice a year while growing up, so her chin hairs, gray, thin hair, and thick glasses are something I always remember being there, whether or not they were.  When I took my grandma out the other day and she had trouble getting in and out of the car, she kept saying how her grandmother and mother always told her not to get old.  “Dorthy, don’t get old,”  they would say.  She said she would always say, “What am I supposed to do?”  My grandma said she knows what they meant now.  Getting old is no fun.  I’m turning 22 in a couple days.  I don’t want to get old.  

So I’ve been on the train for about 2 hours now and I’m starting to pine more and more to be able to live out one of my biggest dreams—to get on a raft ( I don’t really care…kayak, canoe, inflatable boat) and just get on any river or stream and just take it wherever it goes.  I want to get really, really lost and just see where I end up.  I’ve had this dream for a really long time.  Whenever I drive cross-country, I always pass so many rivers with very distinguishable names.  They have names like the Little Raccoon River and the Skunk River.  I don’t really know if those are right, but I always know when I pass them that I’ve been there before.  I also don’t really know why I want to get so lost.  I was lost once in the forest at my cabin.  It’s a really dumb story and it’s actually a bit embarrassing.  I got angry at my family (as I was angry a lot that summer, I really don’t know why), so I stomped off into the forest, not really meaning to get lost or to go that far.  I meant to curve around and make it back to the road, but I guess that didn’t happen.  I remember seeing a coyote and deciding not to go the way it was going, so I went a different way, which was probably a big mistake.  I ended up not being able to find the road, despite being able to hear it.  I went running through the marsh in only flipflops (I wasn’t planning on getting lost).  My feet were scratched, I was completely disoriented, and now more than ever, completely angry at myself.  I eventually saw a red truck through the trees, which belonged to the people who owned the land next to our plot.  I followed their driveway back to the road and started walking the half mile back to the cabin completely defeated and devastated.  But I feel like if I planned to get lost, it really wouldn’t be so bad.  And besides, I’d be like an explorer.  Yeah, I have fantasies about that as well.

A man across from me on the train drank a little bottle of wine during most of the train ride.  Now he is sleeping.  I don’t think wine would be an appetizing addition to a train ride, but maybe I just don’t know these things or maybe I’m just not old enough yet to appreciate the misappropriate, but amazing times to indulge myself with alcohol.  Either way, I hope I don’t get the belly that he has or have to read The Alex Studies: Cognitive and Communicative Abilities of Grey Parrots.  Not even joking.  If I had to read that, I would definitely want to finish off a bottle of wine and fall asleep.  

1 year ago  2 notes
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